Bunkers are now in place at Ali Base, Iraq, in response to an increase in rocket attacks. Construction began on the concrete shelters the day after Col. David Orr, 407th Air Expeditionary Group commander, ordered the new bunkers to increase safety and security. Local contractors provided and placed barriers and t-walls to fortify high traffic areas, providing protection for airmen from fragmentation of rockets, shrapnel, and debris. In the near future, the AEG plans to install benches and reinforce the bunkers with sandbags, reports to the base newspaper, Ali Times.
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.